IBM Showcases Strategic Digital Changes at the 2021 US Open

With spectators back in the stands for the first time since the start of the pandemic, the 2021 United States Open Tennis Championships (US Open) tournament faces its new normalcy — and the sports data analysis conducted during the event by IBM is no exception.

Continuing a relationship that stretches back about 30 years, IBM’s Open Hybrid Cloud, Watson, and other resources are put into play processing mountains of data generated by the performance of the competitors. As seen in years prior at the US Open, this can include working with unstructured data that must be transmuted into something more useable.

Though the 2020 US Open tournament was held, the COVID-19 pandemic forced the event to go remote with no audience in the stands. That was made possible in part through cloud technology that IBM made available. The 2021 tournament brought the introduction of IBM Power Rankings with Watson, which are AI-powered daily rankings of player performance at the US Open.

This year, in-person attendance resumes with proof of vaccination and other procedures in place to better ensure fan safety. Tuesday night of the US Open saw up-and-comer Holger Rune serve up a surprising challenge to Novak Djokovic, currently ranked as the men’s singles world No. 1 by the Association of Tennis Professionals. Top-seeded Djokovic won the match ultimately.

Holger_Rune-USOPEN.jpg
Holger Rune during the first round of the 2021 US Open. Credit: Joao-Pierre S. Ruth

Restrictions and changes necessitated by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic also meant IBM could not offer a walkthrough of their technology centers behind the scenes at the Arthur Ashe Stadium in Queens, as was done in the past.

Still, the company gave a glimpse on Tuesday night into how it continues to turn fresh and historic data gathered from competitors at the US Open into content such as Power Rankings and projections on upcoming matchups.

The scale of the US Open, in terms of audience size and data, is substantial. “This is the largest annually attended sporting event in the world,” said Lewis Sherr, chief revenue officer with the United States Tennis Association (USTA), which hosts the tournament. Under normal circumstances, more than 850,000 fans attend the US Open in-person over the course of three weeks. The audience scale expands further when accounting for viewership from around the world. “We’re much more like an Olympic Games or World Cup than we are NBA or NFL teams that are domestically focused,” he said.

USTA’s relationship with IBM predates the existence of websites and evolved further of late in response to the pandemic. “The work we’re doing, leveraging cloud capabilities to be more efficient operationally, leveraging AI capability to allow our fans to engage more deeply in match analysis … it really is a testament to IBM’s ability to stay current and keep us at the leading edge in sports and entertainment tech,” Sherr said.

The work done by USTA and IBM over the decades to bring the tournament to fans wherever they are essentially fed into their strategy to adapt to the pandemics, said Kirsten Corio, USTA’s managing director of ticket sales, hospitality, and digital strategy. “It’s been part of our mission for years pre-pandemic.” 

Kirsten_Corio-USOPEN.jpg
Kirsten Corio, USTA’s managing director of ticket sales, hospitality, and digital strategy. Credit: Joao-Pierre S. Ruth

Bringing the US Open to fans in a digital way includes scores, stats, Power Ranking, and play schedule, Corio said, as well as increases engagement with casual tennis fans who might not be well-versed in all its nuances or newer players. “ dovetails nicely into some of the other features and functionality we’ve built that look at AI in a way that helps educate the fan,” she said.

Deconstructing what led to some of the more recent capabilities developed for the USTA and the US Open — it all started with the data, said John Kent, program manager for IBM’s sports and entertainment partnerships. Fans in the stands and viewers at home might see just a few data points such as serve speed during matches, but he said even more can be found below the surface. “There’s a lot of data floating off the court,” Kent said. “That’s what we call structured data. Player position, ball position, all that’s aggregated in. But with the use of AI, articles and blogs and video are data.”

Structured data such as how the player is performing factors into the power rankings, but he said they also can monitor what sports pundits are saying to better determine those power rankings. This also offers some opportunity to predict the potential outcome of matches, derived from data. “We can put for any head-to-head match the likelihood of a player to win,” Kent said.

IBM Open Hybrid Cloud enabled such computing power, he said, along with Red Hat OpenShift technology for development. “The subset applications for Power Rankings and match insights, there’s multiple applications,” Kent said. “They have different needs.” He said hybrid cloud offers the flexibility for connectivity most everywhere.

Related Content:

IBM Puts Red Hat OpenShift to Work on Sports Data at US Open

IBM Esports and Interxion Talk Lessons from Cloud Gaming Tech

Topspin and Terabytes: IBM Ups Its Cloud Game at the Masters

Note: This article have been indexed to our site. We do not claim legitimacy, ownership or copyright of any of the content above. To see the article at original source Click Here

Related Posts
一男子因利用假冒iPhone诈保牟利超百万美元而被判两年监禁 thumbnail

一男子因利用假冒iPhone诈保牟利超百万美元而被判两年监禁

0 cnBeta.COM   2022-02-02 17:45:16 摘要:美国司法部周二公告称:一名男子因参与利用假冒 iPhone 申请售后、对苹果公司造成超百万美元的损失,而被判处 26 个月的监禁。32 岁的 Haiteng Wu 于 2013 年前往美国攻读工科,并于 2015 年获得硕士学位。尽管两年后合法就业,但与此同时,他也开始了一项为期三年半的诈保计划。 公告指出,当事人谋划了从香港接收 IMEI 和序列号与正品苹果设备相对应的仿冒品,然后与其他同谋者将这些声称还在质保期内的假冒 iPhone 退还给苹果。在成功骗取了替换用的真机后,赃物又被其发回在香港的同谋者那里转手牟利。更让人无语的是,Wu 还将包括妻子在内许多人拉下了水。为了“壮大”iPhone 诈保的生意,他还涉及伪造身份证件、开设多个商业收件箱、以及安排其他参与者穿越美国。但在美国土安全部 / 国土安全调查局 / 邮政监察局的联合督导下,Wu 最终承认其从苹果公司诈取仅百万美元的财物。但若团伙没有在 2019 年落网,他们还打算继续开展下去。2020 年 5 月,Wu 承认犯下一项串谋邮件欺诈罪。周二的时候,法官 Emmet G. Sullivan 终于对已服刑 26 个月的 Wu 下达了裁定。除了罚没非法所得,他还必须支付 98.7 万美元的赔偿金。至于 Wu 的妻子 Cai 女士,也于 2020 年 5 月承认在某县犯下了一项串谋邮件欺诈罪。
Read More
Geo-engineering against climate change: fake good idea? thumbnail

Geo-engineering against climate change: fake good idea?

[Podcast] Peut-on utiliser la tech pour corriger le climat ? Dans cet épisode du Meilleur des Mondes, l’émission de France Culture en partenariat avec Numerama, la géo-ingénierie climatique est débattue avec trois scientifiques. Une lettre ouverte, signée par plusieurs scientifiques début 2022, appelait récemment à « empêcher la normalisation de la géo-ingénierie solaire comme option…
Read More
Xiaomi 11T series of phones presented in Belgrade (video) thumbnail

Xiaomi 11T series of phones presented in Belgrade (video)

08.10.2021 17:43 | 0 Mobile Spektakularnim događajem održanom u poznatom beogradskom klubu "Lafayette", neobičnim kabaretskim nastupom, Xiaomi je obeležio prvo zvanično, javno predstavljanje nekog svog modela telefona u Srbiji. Pogledajte kako je to izgledalo, u videu na Benchmark YouTube kanalu.Xiaomi 11T seriju čine 11T i 11T Pro modeli, koji domaćoj publici nude brojne inovacije. Veliki…
Read More
The first models of the Samsung Galaxy S22 are here (Photo + Video) thumbnail

The first models of the Samsung Galaxy S22 are here (Photo + Video)

Samsung Galaxy S22, Galaxy S22+ şi Galaxy S22 Ultra au primit scăpări importante weekendul trecut, atunci când randările lor au fost dezvăluite de către @OnLeaks. Acum apar şi primele machete pentru cel mai mic model, S22 şi le puteţi vedea mai jos.Sursa este Pigtou, iar acestea sunt de fapt mulaje din aluminiu folosite de producătorii…
Read More
Index Of News
Consider making some contribution to keep us going. We are donation based team who works to bring the best content to the readers. Every donation matters.
Donate Now

Subscription Form

Liking our Index Of News so far? Would you like to subscribe to receive news updates daily?

Total
0
Share